


no more monsters, i can breathe again

by charjace



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22954399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charjace/pseuds/charjace
Summary: in this fanfic, this is everyone's jobsEddie - Make Up Artist ( I'm Currently Studying this... so this little info is self indulgent )Stan - Account, Vlogger ( Bird Watching Videos & Weekend Type )Richie - Comedian / ActorBill - WriterBev - Model / Fashion DesignerMike - Football PlayerBen - ArchitectPatty - School Teacher
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Stanley Uris
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	no more monsters, i can breathe again

**Author's Note:**

> in this fanfic, this is everyone's jobs
> 
> Eddie - Make Up Artist ( I'm Currently Studying this... so this little info is self indulgent )  
> Stan - Account, Vlogger ( Bird Watching Videos & Weekend Type )  
> Richie - Comedian / Actor  
> Bill - Writer  
> Bev - Model / Fashion Designer  
> Mike - Football Player  
> Ben - Architect  
> Patty - School Teacher

The celling of Stan’s guest room wasn’t amazing, or that interesting – it was just a plain simple white colour that spread down into a nice light blue shade on the walls. It wasn’t all that intriguing but that is what he has been staring at for the last five, maybe ten or hell thirty minutes. He honestly doesn’t know anymore; he hasn’t been keeping track of the time and his mind was kind of numb. Arm was heavy on his chest from the cast he was suppose get off today, but – he can’t be bothered moving. His mind was racing a mile a minute as things were starting to crash down on him. Slowly, ever since his accident – he's been figuring things out for himself, things he refused to acknowledge because it was a safety blanket, because he didn’t know better, but he did. He did know better; he had  _ witnessed _ better but he thinks he hadn’t deserved it like his friends had. His mother had made him feel like  _ that _ was what love was, that was the kind he needed, so he had fallen into that safe cocoon of her warped way of love – so much that he had found it in a partner after her death.

His partner, now ex, easily took up to treating him as fragile and he just let it happen because he believed he was as they had said. His bravery that he sees deep inside him, it was just a stupid fantasy that would break all his brittle bones. Even though his friends told him she wasn’t right for him, that he could crash with them until he found something better – he couldn’t find it in himself to leave her. Being treated like that within his own home – it was all he had known.

But, for the past few weeks, he’s been living in Stan’s guest bedroom – and already it was different. Stan wasn’t treating him any differently, even when he needed Stan’s help with something. His cries for help weren’t met with overbearing help to the point where he had to step away and let them do it. Stan just helped him with a smile, and only guided him. The only thing Stan fully did was change the bandages on his abdomen because it was kind of hard to do that with a broken arm.

All of their other friends, they only helped when he asked for it and didn’t immediately assume that he needed it. They were kind, they loved him without constantly worrying about his health and they just let him  _ live _ his life, and they’ve always been like that but now that he no longer has his mother, or ex anymore? It feels different when he notices it because he doesn’t have that  _ cocoon _ to fall back into, and it scares him a little but at the same time it makes him feel  _ alive _ . It feels like he is finally living his life now that he is rid of his mother once and for all.

It was a long time he thinks that he’d been lying there, but he doesn’t know when he started crying but he knows he had when Stan walked in to check on him.

“Eddie? Are you okay?” Stan’s voice asks, and Eddie looks up to see Stan walking into the room – a cup in his hand that was steaming up, Stan places the cup on the nightstand next to Eddie.

Eddie gave a small shake of his head, he knows he’s not okay – but, he doesn’t know what is wrong with him. “I don’t know what is wrong with me Stan. I don’t know what to do.”

“That’s alright, you got out of a toxic relationship – you're allowed to feel lost,” Stan says as he gives Eddie’s hand shoulder a small squeeze. “If you want to talk about it, or anything, you know I’m here. That the other Losers are too, right.”

Giving a small nod of his head, Eddie says “I know. Uh... what’s the time?”

“Almost three, why?” Stan muses.

“Could you take me to the doctors? I should have left thirty minutes ago if I was going to walk there,” Eddie admits. He didn’t like the idea of driving with a broken arm, so he never did and just walked everywhere, or his asked one of his friends for a ride.

“Sure.”

_ It was dark, and he felt like someone was watching him so he pulled the hoodie he was wearing in closer to himself – like it was some kind of shield. It wasn’t. It was quiet as he walked to his car, his keys in his hands. There was sudden sound of something, no someone running and they ran towards him. It had taken him longer then he would like to admit to notice the knife in the blurry figure’s hand. The knife went into him, just missing his bone. The sickening feeling of it coming out, and he tried to fight back. He hit his attacker, and his attacker just plunged the knife in again, higher this time. He’s trying to fight back, and it’s out only to go back in again. The attacker just going higher with each stab – he falls to the ground, landing  _ hard _ on his arm and he can feel it break with the action and he can’t help but let out a scream of pain, and he tries to kick at his attacker who is coming at him again with the knife. His vision is going blurry, and he doesn’t know what’s going on – maybe he’s dying. _

_ “Eddie! Eddie! _ ****

Eddie! Wake up!” Stan’s voice pulled him out of his nightmare, and he could see Stan above him, he traces his eyes down Stan’s arms to see they were holding Eddie’s shoulders to the bed – as if to keep him still.

Upon seeing Eddie awake, Stan let’s go. Eddie sits himself up, finding it easier to do now that he no longer has his cast on  his arm . He pulls his legs up to his chest, he no longer thinks he needs to wear a bandage on the  wounds that litter his  abdomen  – they've healed enough, they’re scaring over, even his doctor said he would be okay with it not on constantly.

Stan moves to sit on Eddie’s side, pulling his friend  close to him . Eddie’s head rested on his shoulder, and Stan could feel the tears that were falling out of his friend’s eyes. Rubbing his hand up and down Eddie’s arm, Stan whispers, “It’s okay, you’re safe. You’re okay, you’re here, you’re alive. I love you, Bev loves you, Richie loves you, Bill loves you, Patty loves you, Ben loves you, Mike loves you. You’re here, you’re safe.”

It’s not unusual for Eddie to wake up from nightmares. They don’t come every night, but they do come – and they aren’t always the same. Sometimes it’s just a feeling in the dream, others he ends up so much worse in his dreams. He just knows that he feels completely useless in his dreams, like they were trying to break him down to tear him apart, bit by bit. The feeling made his skin crawl, and he doesn’t know how to truly explain the way he would wake up feeling sick to his stomach, like the world was crashing down on him and he couldn’t breathe. How it made him feel like he was a stranger in his own skin, that the words he spoke were just a script that someone else has placed in his mouth. Or how he wants to rip off his own skin because he feels something inside him and he just wants to get it  _ out _ , he wants it out of him but he doesn’t know where it is.

He hates his nightmares , but then again who doesn’t. He hates them because they’re  based on memory, of something in his life, of feelings he’s had in his life. That’s why he likes it when Stan comforts him, because when Stan  soothes him down, he never once says that Eddie’s nightmares aren’t real. He doesn’t say they’re true either, he just  talks to Eddie, saying that Eddie is loved, that he is alive, that right there in Stan's arms and home, that Eddie was okay.

Eddie wants to believe it, and he does, for a while until he starts to notice things a little too much. He notices just small things; he tries not to think too much about it but he can’t help it.

It’s been a few months, and Eddie is struggling to find a place he  _ likes _ so he no longer has to burden Stan anymore. None of them were what he wanted – it was too big, it was too small, it just wasn’t  _ right _ . Or maybe he was just too comfortable with living in a home with someone else in it. He knows that it might not be healthy, but at least in Stan’s home – he is fending for himself all the time, he stopped taking the pills that made it much easier for him to get through his life at home with his mother, with his ex. He didn’t need them to get by anymore.

Even when he _ was _ sick, throwing up and feeling like utter crap the care and help Stan had given him wasn’t overbearing, it was enough to let him breathe in a sense. That had happened after he stopped taking the pills – he doesn’t think they’re related.

Right now, he was sitting in front of Bev as he helped her with her make up for the day. Stan walked in, a camera in his hand and Kay was behind him. They all looked wonderful, Bev in her white dress that she had designed for herself. Kay had designed Patty’s dress for the day which Eddie will see in a half an hour when he goes to help her with her make up. Kay came over and started on Bev’s hair. Kay was wearing a soft green dress, that hugged her just right, and Stan was wearing a neat tux with a simple black tie.

Eddie wasn’t in a tux yet; he didn’t want it to get dirty when he worked on the girls. As he switched over to were Patty was, he could see as Ben and Mike were rummaging to set up the seats while Richie and Bill were, guiding those who were early to seats. Stan followed him to Patty so they could get some footage of that too.

He had packed up his kit, and Stan helped him to take it to his car before they went into the room Bev was in, Kay had taken her out so that Eddie could get changed, while Stan waited outside. He got on his tux, but was having extreme trouble with his tie. He’s never done this before, he’s never worn a tie, his mother would never allow it so he never learnt, so he walked out of the room to see Stan there with a smile upon his lips.

“Having trouble?” Stan asks, placing his camera on  a table that was nearby before stepping closer to Eddie.

With a nod of his head, Eddie looked down, ashamed a little that he didn’t know this  _ basic _ task.  But, Stan didn’t seem to be having any of it, because he lifted Eddie’s chin up and those thoughts, those little details were coming back to him. His heart was starting to pick up and he hoped that Stan didn’t notice as he wrapped his fingers  delicately around the fabric that hung around Eddie’s neck.

“Just watch me, and you’ll learn,” Stan says as he moves the tie around Eddie’s neck to get it in the right place. If Eddie were to be honest, he just watched as Stan’s hands moved, the instructions that were being told were going in one ear and out the other and Eddie hopes he will never have to wear a tie ever again and if he does, he’ll find a video online because surely there would be one out there.

Feeling a pat on his chest, Eddie notices Stan is finished and smiling up at him and Eddie smiles back. Stan’s smile makes him feel something strange inside, it makes him crave the smile on Stan’s lips to stay there. He won’t admit it, but he would like to kiss Stan – that is what he feels like when he  sees the smile. He wants to feel it against his own lips, but he can’t and he won’t.

“Those images turned out really well,” Stan says as he sits down next to Eddie who was looking at the images that Bev and Patty had uploaded to their personal Facebook, they had also uploaded a few to Instagram.

“They did,” Eddie says, switching to his phone and throwing a like at the ones on Instagram, smiling a little as he read a few comments on there. He was so happy for his friends, next thing he knows – Bill and Richie will be getting hitched and then Stan would find someone – and he’ll be alone.  But he doesn’t mind because he won’t  _ truly _ be alone, not really. Not with those friends of his, they would never let him be alone.

“Look at that, he’s probably gushing over how his hard work turned out so beautifully,” Stan’s voice travelled to his ears, turning his head, Eddie sees Stan holding his camera.

Eddie flips off the camera, knowing that Stan would either blur it out or cut it completely. “I wasn’t asshole,” Eddie retorts, poking his tongue out at the camera that was still on him. “God, stop Stan none of your viewers want to see me.”

There was a small laugh that came from Stan’s lips behind the camera, and Eddie couldn’t help but smile at the sound that meet his ears. Stan closes the camera and turns it off, smiling at Eddie. His heart was beating out of his chest, and he didn’t know what to do – but he does know one thing. It’s something he’s found himself coming to terms with over the last few months, ever since he was attacked. Something he believes he had buried so deep within himself because he knew how his mother talked about  _ that _ kind of thing, how his ex would look at his friends and how they were both scared that he’d end up sick, because all his friends were. His friends weren’t sick, and he believes he knows what his mother was talking about when she would, quickly hurry him inside when he was younger – away from them, and force him to shower all the germs.

“Hey, Stan,” Eddie speaks, voice now a soft and quiet in the room but the only sound around. “I’m gay.”

Watching as Stan leaned in, and pulled him into a hug, Eddie couldn’t help but tear up and maybe a few tears fell out. He can hear Stan’s soft words of, “I’m proud of you.”

Eddie had slowly told the others over a couple of weeks, he’s still at Stan’s place and the room is no longer called the  _ guest _ room, but  _ Eddie’s _ room because it doesn’t look like he’s moving out, plus they could both do with roommates. Making his way to the kitchen, he noticed Stan was sitting on the floor – a dishtowel clutched to his arm, eyes quickly moving around the room, he notices the blood on the ground, a knife on the ground that had blood on it.

He needs to take a few deep breathes – he closes his eyes,  _ one, two, three _ .  _ In, Out, In, Out. _ “Shit Stan,” Eddie manages to say, before grabbing his keys that were laying on the bench. “Can you stand up?”

Stan shakes his head, and Eddie can see tears silently falling down Stan’s face, and  _ oh _ how does Eddie’s heart break at the sight. Going to carefully help Stan up, Eddie makes sure that Stan is keeping pressure onto his arm. The blood was soaking through the towel, but that didn’t matter so long as he kept the pressure and Eddie got him to the doctors.

“It’s bad,” Stan’s voice, sounding broken and painfully quiet spoken as Eddie climbs into his car after he settled Stan in.

“I k-,”

“No,” Stan shakes his head slightly, the word causes Eddie to look at Stan before he pulls out. He watches as Stan winces as he lifts his arms so he can point at his head, “It’s  _ bad _ .”

“Oh, okay Stan,” Eddie says, his heart dropping down into his stomach because he knows what that means. “Hey, just, stay awake until we get the doctors okay. They’ll fix you right up, and then we can come home and you can rest.”

There was a bandage on Stan’s wrist, mostly just to hide the cut that was on his forearm and to stop it from being grazed by clothing or other things. When they had gotten home, three hours later that day, so Eddie ordered in take-away for them to eat. He randomly put on a movie he thought they might enjoy, as they ate in silence. Stan had fallen asleep, half way through the film and Eddie gently woke him up.

After guiding Stan to his bed, Eddie was going to leave when his arm was captured by Stan’s fingers, holding onto his wrist with his good arm. Eddie raises an  eyebrow; a silent question and he gets a silent answer in return as Stan pats the side of his bed.

“Okay,” Eddie replies, only walking away to turn off the light before he climbed into the bed next to Stan. Once he was on the bed, Stan had moved himself so that he was resting his head on Eddie’s chest, and Eddie moved an arm to wrap around Stan to hold him close. He presses a soft kiss to the top of Stan’s head, “I love you, Richie loves you, Patty loves  you,… ” Eddie repeats off the words Stan does after a nightmare. Ben, Mike, Bill and Bev’s names falling out of his lips easily, and all over and over until Stan had fallen asleep, and he wasn’t too far behind into sleep land.

Recovery was a slow process; Eddie knew that and was doing what he could to make sure that Stan didn’t rush it. Telling him he didn’t need to worry about his viewers right now, that  _ he _ was who he needed to focus on. Stan was on the couch, a blanket around his shoulders with a book in his hands, legs curled up into his chest. It was Bill’s latest one that he had published. There was a mug of hot tea sitting on the coffee table when Eddie got home, it’s been almost two months since he had found Stan in the kitchen. The wound was scaring over. On the week days, Stan goes to his accounting job while Eddie goes his job, which right now he was currently working with Richie who was working on a film.

“There is some left over in the fridge,” Stan says, looking up from his book to give a small smile at Eddie as he closes the door.

He gets the leftovers, heating it up before taking a seat on the couch, Eddie was always careful enough to not let anything drop on the floor. Pulling out his phone, Eddie pulls up his gallery and holding it out to Stan, “Want to see Richie in full make up?”

Curious, Stan looks at Eddie’s phone, letting the other take his phone because he trusts Stan with it. “Have you sent this to Bill yet? I’m sure he’d love to see his boyfriend like this.”

“I was going to send it to the group chat, but I wanted you to see it first,” Eddie answers, taking his phone back when Stan handed it back over. It goes quiet between them, and Stan returns to his book while Eddie eats.

After cleaning his plate and fork, Eddie goes and takes a seat on the couch, where Stan absently places his feet on Eddie’s lap as he stretched his legs out. He goes to find something to watch on TV but, he really couldn’t find anything, so he sends the image through to the chat – laughing a little as his friends comment on it, and Richie’s comments and replies. It was great, and Eddie decided to send another photo through.

Taking a photo of Stan from his spot, Eddie sent it through with a caption that read, ‘ _ Came home to him like this, whoever snatches him up is lucky’.  _ The comment was meant to come off like their usual banter, their usual support of each other – and he hopes it does, but he doesn’t think it does when a text from Bill comes through his phone.

** Big Bill: ** Eddie do you like Stan?

** Eddie: ** Of course, we’re friends

** Big Bill: ** Not what I  meant, you know that. 

** Eddie: ** I don’t know Bill... maybe.

Lifting his eyes from his phone, to the other male at the end of the couch, Eddie smiles. Eddie knows, he definitely knows he does like Stan, more then he should. He likes when they’re like this, just sitting down together – doing practically nothing because they could and it didn’t matter. It felt nice that they could just be in the same room, and Eddie was feeling better just that little bit more. There was no doubt that he liked it when he came home from work, to see Stan doing something so simple – that he wished he could press a kiss to Stan’s cheek, his forehead – his lips.

Eddie likes the way Stan makes him feel, and he hates the thought of having to ruin that with telling Stan. 

“Is something wrong?” Stan’s voice shatters Eddie’s train of thought.

The book Stan was reading, was now next to his cup of tea – eyes looking at Eddie with a smile, and a raised eyebrow. “No, just thinking.”

“About?” Stan asks.

“How much I love you,” Eddie replies, not taking his eyes off of Stan as he let the words fall past his lips. Stan’s lips spread into a wider smile, and that gets Eddie’s heart pumping. He’s not sure where this has come from, why it’s there but it is and he can’t let it go.

“I l-”

“I ** love ** you Stan,” Eddie is firm, trying to convey his meaning behind the word, to let it be known how much and how deep his love for Stan is. “I want to kiss you, hold your hand – all that dating crap. You made me feel loved and cared for, and in a way that wasn’t like my mother. It feels  way better  then that, because I know you truly care about me. I  **_ love _ ** you Stan.”

Stan moves his feet off of Eddie’s lap, the action scared him for a small bit before Stan is moving his leg over his own, Stan was now sitting on his lap, arms around his neck. “I  _ love  _ you too.” Thumbs rubbing against the back of Eddie’s neck, it was a soft motion and Eddie could feel himself melt into it.

Their faces were moving closer together, and he is sure that Stan could feel his heart beating extremely fast out of his chest, as Stan’s face got closer to his own. Lips meet, and Eddie can’t help but melt into the kiss. How the kiss feels much homier, more caring then the ones he shared with his ex. Kissing Stan felt natural, like this was what he was supposed to be doing. His own hands going to hold onto Stan’s waist.

Pulling away, Eddie couldn’t help but smile widely. “ Wanna go on a date?”

There was a light laugh that fell from Stan, and Eddie could feel it, “Yeah.”

“Great,” Eddie says, before grabbing hold of Stan’s arms, holding them out so they were in front of them. He can see the way, Stan stiffens up slightly at the touch, and he gets it – he understands the motion. Gently, Eddie presses his lips softly to the scar that laid on his arm.

When they go to bed, Stan presses his own soft kisses to the scars that lay across Eddie’s abdomen. Soft kisses, reassuring kisses and loving words were exchanged as they feel asleep next to each other.

**Author's Note:**

> might make it a mini series of drabbles set in this universe, let me know what you'd like to see


End file.
